Feast for 2 
Ube icecream 
Feast for 8
Set in St. James Town near Sherbourne station, Tinuno is a place you go to on special occasions or to reunite with pals. It’s a place where you enjoy homey Filipino food for a very reasonable price. It’s a place where you feast on grilled meat, fish, seafood and garlic rice. It’s a place where you eat with your hands.
Tinuno means to cook with direct heat on a grill (or fire). The restaurant is best known for their Kamayan feast, where you are presented with mango salad and orange slices, mounds of garlic rice & a good variety of grilled goodies: 2 variants of fried fish (milk fish and tilapia), barbecue pork skewers, pork belly, shrimp, mussels, seared eggplant, okra, and squid, all sprawled along banana leaves. They also have a vegetarian option for the vegetarians out there! With gloves you can proceed to consume your feast the “kamayan” way, which means hand to mouth.
While eating rice or bread+meat with hands is a norm in most South Asian, Middle Eastern, and some East Asian and African countries, this routine might be a first for some. Many will say eating with hands makes the food taste even better (true or not, you decide!), and it’s also a great icebreaker to connect with those around you. At first it might feel embarrassing and awkward, but pretty quickly you’ll realize all you want to do is get the food straight to your mouth. Eventually, without fear or shyness, you can be yourself among your group, enjoy the food, and eat as the early humans did. Isn’t that how feasts should be?
Now, let’s discuss the fish. The tilapia is grilled whole, fish head and eyes and all, with a slight seasoning of salt. The skin is charred and the meat is lean and slightly sweet, with the spine lining the inside. Pro-tip, the insides of the fish head is a savory delicacy not many know of – so dig in! In contrast, the milk fish fillet, topped with cubed tomatoes and onions, packs a punch and leaves a lasting mark of saltiness and umami on the palette. Not everyone can handle the strong saltiness of the milk fish, so you might want to bring some back-up fish lovers with you on your feast.
Next up is the barbecue pork and pork belly, which to be honest is pretty standard, and can be a hit or miss. The barbecue pork is juicy, accented by a house-made banana ketchup that tastes similar to Cantonese barbecue pork (叉烧), and the added char on the surface brings on a whole new level to the flavor profile. However, the char is not always there between visits, as evident in the slideshow photos.
The shrimp, squid, mussels, and vegetables round out the roster in addition to the fish stars of the show. The seafood brought a light sweetness from the shrimp and mussels, and chewy textures from the squid. The eggplant and okra are less common vegetables compared to your everyday potato and tomato, so those were a refreshing part of the meal, as was the mango(+carrot) salad.
Outlining the meal was a calamansi soda – acidic, citrus-y, and not too sweet. A nice way to bring the chow down. We ended our meal with ube ice cream, which has the most wonderful, vivid purple you could ever see. Imported all the way from the Philippines, it tasted sweet, and had a distinct starchy flavor from the violet ube yam.
If you ever feel like eating like a king but not spending like one, go to Tinuno and enjoy fresh, authentic food for just $15 a head.
Eat, Eat and [ ] 